YIN AND YANG
by Princess Sassafras
Summary: The universe is made of up pairs, of opposites. Night and Day. Earth and Sky. Anakin and Obi Wan. [slash]
1. Two Halves

"YIN AND YANG"

Part I- Two Halves

By: Princess Sassafras

Notes: My first Star Wars Slash Romance. ALTERNATE UNIVERSE (isn't all Obi/Ani fiction at least slightly AU anyway?) With implied Chinese philosophy!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of George Lucas' Star Wars…though I often wish I could "borrow" Master Kenobi.

* * *

The universe is comprised of pairs, of opposites. Of this, Obi-Wan Kenobi is very sure. There are, after all, night and day, sun and moon, earth and sky. There are also Love and Hate. Anger and Joy. Birth and Death. There is the frozen glass of winter opposite the pure-bright explosion of summer. The human body itself has two sides, one of which is used for balance and the other for primary gesturing. All the opposites that are perceived in the universe can be reduced to one of two forces, Light and Dark, neither of which are completely good or evil. For they are the powerful and opposing sides of the eternal Force to which many have dedicated their lives, or at least have admitted to the existence of. For how can it be denied?

Obi-Wan is more aware every moment of every day that the Force is both the guiding and yielding element of the entire universe. It both controls and obeys. It can calm or impassion. Passion…the troubling subject of his present meditation.

All of his long life—from youngling to Padawan under his beloved Master Qui-Gonn Jinn, to Jedi Master himself—he has been taught to avoid what engenders passion. He was taught that the word passion encompasses many dangerous things: anger, hatred, obsession, lust, and love. A Jedi must know none of these.

As a young boy he swore to love and serve only the Force, driven by the pain he saw around him to make right what was wrong in the universe, to give light where there was only blackness, and he was encouraged by his new Master to take a vow further than the vow of a Jedi to the Order, the vow of a Jedi to the Force itself, a marriage, a sacred and unbreakable union.

In his language, there is only one word for the intense attachment of a human to someone or something: love. In more ancient or otherworldly languages there are thousands. Obi-Wan is increasingly puzzled by this. How could a word that has so many meanings have only one form? For here is abruptly inserted into his mind—like a strong unbreakable arm thrown across a forbidden threshold—the feeling of guilt, the feeling of the wrongness of considering any other love than the one he has pledged his life to.

It broke his heart that day, that day in silent meditation, when alighting on the residual spirit of his old Master, he cried out in joy and pain. He had broken his vow already…and many times.

Obi-Wan Kenobi realized then that he loved not only the Force, but also many of its creations. And he wonders now, as he did then, if this can be so wrong, as many of the more experienced Masters have repeatedly sworn.

As he closes his eyes again, beloved faces swim to and break the still surface of his consciousness. Not only his Master Qui-Gonn, his father and his teacher (for he loved him as both), but others…

Padme Amidala Naberrie. The precious Lady he has pledged in his heart to protect. In her eyes he sees the mother he barely knew, the daughter he may never have, and perhaps a sister…someone to see eye to eye with. But though a Senator and a Jedi may share quiet jokes about their differences on political stances and loyalties, in reality what they are joking about is quite adverse and serious. But Obi-Wan loves her nonetheless.

Shirking meditative thoughts of his former Padawan has never worked for Obi-Wan for long. Even though Anakin is no longer his pupil, the blue-coal-fire eyed, rakishly handsome youth who once followed him and lived only by his counsel, is still there…beside Obi-Wan, a comrade and a brother. No mere fellow Jedi, Anakin seems to complete Obi-Wan's very world with his presence. He is dark and fierce and electric one moment, and bright as the piercing rays of the Tatooine suns the next. He is young and wise, guarded and headstrong. The fact that he was never completely tamed by the Order's tight principles makes him all the more a fierce and formidable fighter for one so green. He leaps from moving speeders, disturbs nests of strange feral creatures on outside planets, flirts far too openly with the women of the Court, and drives Obi-Wan to absolute fits of insanity.

Obi-Wan's lips crack into a fond, though rueful, smile even as he continues his meditation. Rueful because he regrets not having taken on Anakin at an earlier age, not having discovered him soon enough to prevent the young man's forcefulness from flowering. FORCEFULNESS. Obi-Wan thinks this quite a fitting descriptive word for Anakin Skywalker. And he thinks of the meaning of the word: _full of force_. Though none can deny that Anakin is full of the Force, some doubt in his control of it. And this is what Obi-Wan regrets most of all.

But could it have been prevented by earlier training? Or is Anakin Skywalker simply temperamental by _nature_. For even when he meditates the aura around him hums with motion. He is a creature of perpetual movement.

Obi-Wan feels that he, himself, is the opposite of this. Sometimes he aches for nothing more than to sit in the cool darkness and the quiet, to sink deeply within himself, and to forget that there are bodies and planets. He wishes to feel only the beautiful shapeless void, full of both brightness and blackness.

Though there is the Dark Side of the Force, this does not mean that everything that is _dark in the Force_ is evil. Obi-Wan knows this to be true, because he feels that he is a sort of dark creature himself. He was often praised by his teachers for his calmness, his cautiousness, and his unfathomable reserve, but there are some Masters who whisper worriedly, or even in outrage, about the attitudes and actions that Obi-Wan Kenobi allows his former Padawan to practice. _Rash_ they call him, and even _too bright, like a raging fire._ They whisper that it should be _contained_.

_Could it be?_ Wonders Obi-Wan, _isn't he? Wasn't he created to be so? Could I have done anything more to make him less than what he is? Would I have wanted to?_

Obi-Wan's heart tells him that there was nothing he could have done, that Anakin would have grown into exactly the man he is, and that there is nothing _wrong_ about him. But Obi-Wan fears that his heart might lie. For here is another conflicting belief of the Jedi: to trust your feelings, but not always your heart.

Here is the struggle: here is the Passion: here is the crux: this beautiful, forceful emotion tearing at his breast. It is fierce and it is bias. He felt it the moment he stared into those electric blue eyes, eyes that should not have belonged to a six year old. They were too knowing, too keen, and too bright. He admits that he loved the boy even then, and though it was chaste it was not at all safe. The very thought of his Padawan in danger had sent him into throes of panicking agony time and time again. _To lose him…_

To lose him would be sin, would be imbalance itself. Obi-Wan admits that he is a mere half of one whole, a mere piece of the full Soul that was created long before his feeble flesh had begun to be constructed. He has had Anakin by his side for so long, even longer than their very lives it seems, and the thought of losing what he cherishes more than all else makes his insides spasm too painfully for him to bear. Anakin is the piercing star in his black sky, the burning heat that makes his frozen veins thaw, the pure white electric presence, whose absence would leave him in nothingness. For how do we know that black is black, if not for white? How would we know there was nighttime, if every morning there did not rise a blinding sun? Obi-Wan knows that just as these things are right, so is his relationship with Anakin. Even those who doubt the success of his teachings cannot deny the inherent bond between Teacher and Student, Brother and Brother.

Here Obi-Wan speaks his silent prayer, a litany that was forged in his subconscious long before he could accept his heart's own desires_: Brother, Student, Teacher, Friend…Love. You were made for me, and I for you. Be with me, stay with me, ride through this long dark sky with me…until the end of days._

Even as he wishes it, Obi-Wan feels the drowning cold blackness envelop his senses, trying to strangle the very memory of light and heat from his heart. He clings to the memory of blue eyes, forcing them to take perfect clarity in his mind, until the cold melts, recedes, is swept from him by a wash of pure fiery light. _Anakin…_

* * *


	2. Still Apart

"YIN AND YANG"

Part II- Still Apart

By: Princess Sassafras

* * *

Anakin hears his Master calling, even from far away, even while the din of the debates of Politicians rages around him. Anakin hates political ceremony, but not as much as he knows Obi-Wan hates it. That is why he is here, and his former Master is elsewhere, probably meditating. Anakin can bear the heat of so many eyes and opinions for far longer than Obi-Wan can, before it begins to become draining. He smiles at another Senator, wishing he could find even Ja-Ja to take his mind off of the tightening crick in his neck. Weariness. Absolute all-encompassing weariness washes over him all of a sudden. Sadness, blackness, and a slow fight against utter despair.

It takes Anakin a few moments to realize that it is not his own emotions he is feeling, but his Master's. He is so used to being in tune with Obi-Wan's every thought and impulse, he can feel them acutely even across a very great distance. _I should go to him…_

Even as he decides, another painted face and pair of smooth hands grasps his in a handshake. _Even the men here have such smooth hands…_he thinks to himself. _The hands of a Jedi are not so smooth._

He fondly remembers his days as a young Padawan, nearly falling on the rocks of the wasteland and having Obi-Wan scoop him up with very careful, very rough hands. The urge to see his Master intensifies, so that he is left looking for an escape route. He catches Padme Amidala's gaze from across the room—she is conversing with a feather-clad lady Anakin does not know—and she winks at him, and motions secretively behind her back. An uncrowded archway. Anakin uses all of his stealth training to move towards that bit of freedom as naturally and inconspicuously as possible, winking back at Padme in thanks on his way out.

The night air of Naboo is sweet as he crosses the stone bridge between buildings. The only sounds are the distant chatter of the politicians and the lap of the purple waves on the rocks not far away. He walks quickly, barely enjoying the night air; his goal is several more minutes from here, in the Quarters building.

He finds his former Master, finally, after searching several rooms, in an empty one across from his own quarters. He opens the door as silently as he knows how, and closes it just as silently behind him.

Obi-Wan is bathed in the light of the twin moons, which slants in from the high and very sheerly curtained windows. The white of his Jedi uniform is pale and pure, mirroring the moonlight. His fair head is bowed slightly in concentration, his brow characteristically tight. His legs are crossed and his hands are cupped, one on top of the other in his lap, as is his wont in meditation. Anakin knows that Obi-Wan must have sensed his presence by now, but he folds his arms behind his back and politely waits for him to come out of his reverie.

It is several long moments before the man speaks. He says softly, abruptly, "I am sorry, Anakin."

"For what, Ma- Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan smiles, ruefully again, at how hard it is for Anakin to call him by his name instead of by "Master."

"For disturbing you. Dealing with the politicians can be quite a chore."

"Yes," says Anakin, a trademark smirk now very clear behind his tone, "and that is why you calling me was not quite a _disturbance_."

Obi-Wan, now smiling more genuinely, raises his head to look at his friend. "You are still _alive_, I take it?"

"If I weren't I would have joined the Senate by now."

Obi-Wan lets loose a short silvery peal of laughter. "And that would be true death!"

Anakin, still smirking, steps further into the room, the dark leather of his boots glinting like obsidian in the moonlight. "I wish I could have left _earlier_. I would much rather have spent my time in dual-meditation here with you than in being sucked dry by so many politicians."

"I know that, Anakin, but once again…"

"…_Someone_ has to be the Poster Boy!" Anakin finishes the old phrase for him, his smirk dimming. "It is usually me."

"Well, you're the hero, aren't you?" Obi-Wan says this as if he truly means it, but there is a darkness behind his words that troubles his former Padawan.

"What is it, M- Obi-Wan?"

"I am only tired, Anakin. It will pass, I'm sure. I'm much more concerned with your progress in the eyes of the Council…"

Here bitterness creeps not softly into Anakin's voice. "Ah, yes, the _Council_. Tell me, have they given you any new pointers as to how to contain me?"

"Such words Anakin!" Here his old Master rises out of his friend abruptly, scolding him with tone and expression. Anakin instinctively lowers his head in momentary shame. "You know the Council only wants what is best for you…and for us as a team. The fact that they have let us continue to work together so closely even after your Knighthood still baffles me! We've been lucky."

Anakin's shoulders untense, but slowly, and he nods. "Yes, we have been." He raises his eyes to meet Obi-Wan's, and they are almost too intense to look at. "It would have been wrong…for them to take you from me."

_Take you from me_. The words ring in Obi-Wan's head like so many bells. His expression is one of pure shock and amazement, "_Take_ me…Anakin, where in the name of the Force do you expect they could have _taken_ me?"

"They are the COUNCIL, Master. They have their ways." Here for a brief moment Obi-Wan sees his old Padawan in Anakin's eyes, glowering with rebellious fire. Not since his braid has been cut has Obi-Wan seen such an angry and resentful spark in his gaze.

"The Council does not _conspire_ Anakin…"

"Don't they?" Here his voice drops heavily like lead, and the implied truth of his words makes Obi-Wan's stomach follow suit.

Anakin is not willing to be tempered. "Aren't they just as controlling as some of the politicians we avoid? Do they not plot, and plan, and spy, and coerce, and _manipulate_?"

"_Anakin_…" For this, Obi-Wan has no argument. He knows that it is true. The Jedi Council has grown very powerful, and has used many methods that he himself does not see the merit of. _They have been using the quick way, the easy way… they claim that this is a path to the Dark Side, yet they tread upon it themselves for just enough space and time to accomplish what they want._

The Means to an End.

"_Sith logic_," Anakin hisses under his breath. His former Master cannot deny it.

After a few tense moments, Obi-Wan breaks the silence. "Let's not talk of the Council, then, for now. I am more concerned with your well-being."

"My well-being? How so? I am in good health, Master. Or perhaps, you, like so many others, question my _mental state_?"

"Absolutely NOT! Anakin, I have known you longer than any member of the Council or the Senate, and the last thing I question is your mental state. I am more worried about the state of your…emotions. Tell me, Anakin, what do your feelings tell you about all of this? About this new presence of the Sith? About the rising Dark?"

"It has been looming in my mind like a great Shadow. Sometimes I dream of it, I…" here Anakin seems to choke, and falls silent.

Obi-Wan sighs and runs long fingers across his amber beard. "Shall we keep so many things from one another, even now?"

"I am sorry, Master. It is hard for me to speak of it."

"_Obi-Wan_! Really, Anakin, we've been through enough for you to level with me as an equal, and to call me by my name. It won't be long before they've given you a seat on the Council, you realize, however much that may threaten to make you lose your dinner."

"_Obi-Wan_…" Anakin corrects, "It is just that it is very difficult for me to speak of the dreams I've been having of late."

"I see. Well, perhaps you'd rather discuss something else. Anything in particular on your mind?"

Anakin thinks for a moment, pursing his lips, "Not on my mind, but on my heart."

Obi-Wan feels a tremor run through him at these words—_on my heart_—but is not sure why. He waits silently for his friend to continue.

"I have this fear…a fear of losing you. I was your Padawan for many years, and I have been your partner for several more since then. I don't know what I would do…if the Council, or circumstance, took you from me. You are all that I _have_!" Obi-Wan stares in shock as tears gather in those fiercely emotional eyes, and one streaks down a pale and scarred cheek. The desperation, the fear, in Anakin's voice and in his eyes is enough to break his heart.

"Oh, but Anakin…I have told you. Nothing could tear me from you, save my passing into the Force."

"Is it wrong then, to fear that also?" Now tears are running freely down his face, now his hands clench powerfully, and now the durasteel frame that is in place of his missing one screeches against the tightening leather. The fire rises in his voice, roils to the surface of his very being. "Is it wrong then, to _hate_ whatever might take you from me! Is it wrong to want to kill it, just as I killed _them_ for taking Her?"

Obi-Wan knows of what and of whom Anakin speaks. His mother was taken, and broken, by the Sand People on their home planet of Tatooine, while Anakin was keeping watch over Padme here on Naboo. He had ignored his dreams of her in pain, and had arrived too late to save her. In an all-consuming rage, he had demolished the village, killing every last creature that inhabited it. They were not human, these Sand Dwellers, but life forms nonetheless. It is a permanent scar on Anakin's soul. Both the loss of a loved one, and the new shock and fear he feels at his own rage. Obi-Wan does not know how to fix it for him, to erase it, so he only says softly, "The Force does not take life Anakin, it accepts its energy. Creatures—humans or other—take life. Circumstances take life."

"I know that it is the Truth, the Natural way of things, but it doesn't stop me from fearing it!"

"My passage is inevitable, Anakin, as is yours. We are but mortal." Obi-Wan reminds him, sounding very much like his old teacher, but still leaving out the Order-imbedded opinion that _Attachment is also a path to the Dark Side_. He is afraid to say it aloud, because he knows that he is also guilty of the sin of Attachment.

As if reading his mind Anakin calms somewhat, but presses, "Why are we here, Obi-Wan? Why is there a Council, or an Order, or a government, or any civilization at all if it is wrong to _attach_ to anyone or anything?"

"You're becoming very good at reading my thoughts, Anakin."

"You always leave them open to me."

"Yes, I do, don't I? But Anakin…as Master Yoda has always taught us, attachment…"

"I'm weary of hearing what good things lead to the Dark Side!" Here Anakin towers over his former Master suddenly, a dark man in billowing leather, no longer a boy. "I'm weary of deliberations about attachment, and love, and marriage! These are unions! The joining of the Senate and the Council is a union! The bond of Master and Padawan is a union! Why should we fear these unions when they are what we most rely on, when they are what our entire existence is built upon?"

"I don't know, Anakin. I wish I had an answer for you…for myself. All that I know is that Attachment _does_ lead to fear, and fear to anger, and anger to hatred. I have seen it happen, and so have you. You feel fear now because of your attachments, and it makes you angry…and not even at a person, but at _nothing_."

It seems to Obi-Wan that Anakin is shattering somehow, now. His presence shrinks, and he falls to his knees a few feet from his Master, in the chokehold of a new and powerfully dark emotion: _despair_.

"Do not tell me these things…" he quakes. Obi-Wan sees the small boy within him then, who has not disappeared but has only been hiding behind new power, knowledge, responsibility, leather and pageantry. And against all his better judgment, Obi-Wan does what he has longed to do since the early days when Anakin was a small boy. He opens his arms.

* * *


	3. Fit Together

"YIN AND YANG"

Part III- Fit Together

By: Princess Sassafras

* * *

It takes a few moments for what Obi-Wan has done to register in Anakin's shrouded mind. His heart aches to accept it fully, to fall into the welcome arms of the man he cherishes above all others. But he is afraid, and so he stares in shock and fear at that waiting embrace, as if it is a black hole that wishes to swallow him.

"Come here, Anakin." Obi-Wan's voice is soft and low, soothing. "Do not be afraid."

Some small serpentine thing in the back of Anakin's brain whispers: _does he think you a child? Did he not just profess his desire for you to be his equal? And now he is being so fatherly…does he mean to control you, too, with placating words and false affections?_

Anakin wants nothing more than to strangle something…and for a moment he projects this onto Obi-Wan, but when he looks up into that pure and kind face, he knows that it is not Obi-Wan who makes him feel this way. It is the voice he wants to strangle, his very Fear is what he wants to kill! It breaks him suddenly—the realization that what he hates is within him. Without thinking, only feeling, he launches into Obi-Wan's waiting arms.

Obi-Wan says nothing, only presses his hand comfortingly at the base of Anakin's bowed and trembling head. Time, being innately flexible (against all human attempts to contain it), travels years in mere minutes. Anakin, who has fallen into Obi-Wan's arms a destroyed thing, no more than a despairing child, _grows_. For the blackness in his heart that he has covered with so many things could not be filled while he was repeatedly hiding it. And it is laid bare, now. He begins to weep for a loss he has not allowed himself to fully experience before this moment: the loss of a father he never knew, a mother he loved, a home that was never really his, and so many other unnamable things. He sobs them all into Obi-Wan's warm chest.

It is only a few hours until morning when Anakin finally makes an attempt to raise his weary head. He calmly, humbly, makes tentative positioning motions across from Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, in turn, makes his own, and they take the dual-meditative pose. Obi-Wan is shocked when Anakin takes his palms, before he can cross-cup them in his lap, and holds them in his own. They are knee-to-knee, palm-to-palm, and psyche-to-psyche. He relaxes, and _releases_ himself into a kind of focus that is the most natural, and the most forgotten.

Another hour passes in silence. The air hums with their energy and concentration. They share important memories and emotions, the most difficult to share being Anakin's recent dreams and Obi-Wan's recent doubts.

Suddenly, like a blossoming flower out of the center of the darkness of Obi-Wan's deepest consciousness, some bright emotion catches Anakin's eye. He has noticed it before, during their deeper meditations, and Obi-Wan has hidden it from him quickly enough that it could not be named. Now he can feel his former Master hesitate, he can feel his wish to put it away, to hide it from him again. Anakin gently presses, tells Obi-Wan without words that it is all right _not_ to hide it.

As if he is releasing a very painful and deeply cramped muscle, Obi-Wan slowly gives in. The blossom of red is unmistakable. Anakin has seen it in his own private meditations. It is the color and shape of _Passion_. Anakin does not rush to touch it, no matter how much his heart is urging him to, but approaches cautiously, respectfully, until he is but barely kissed by its heat. _Oh…_

Shock.

Pure, undiluted awe. His own eyes are here, his own mouth, his own hands, his very…presence lives in this red bloom in Obi-Wan's mind. And above all, singing to him in the pit of the heat are words that are for him: _cherished one_.

Cherished one. Important one. Beloved one.

The darkness in Anakin shivers and shrinks—only marginally—but it feels to him like the deepest cut of the sharpest knife. He cannot bear this surgery…the way this red bloom in Obi-Wan makes him feel. So he pulls out.

And suddenly they are there, physically there, and Obi-Wan's hands are empty, and Anakin is scrambling to his feet in the growing light of dawn.

"Anakin." His name sounds like a both a promise and a plea. _I promise it's all alright_, and _please don't run away_. But even behind that was Obi-Wan's own uncertainty.

Anakin had never felt what he is feeling now…at least not at full force. And something unknown is usually something feared.

"I…can't." Anakin backs away towards the doorway. Obi-Wan lowers his head in sudden sorrowful acceptance, for he knows that if he had seen what Anakin has seen, he would be running too.

"I'm sorry…" he says, and he cannot stop a few tears from leaving his burning eyes.

"Obi…Obi-Wan?" Anakin's voice is afraid, and Obi-Wan is ashamed to have given him any reason to fear. It makes him feel ugly, suddenly, the Passion in him. It is the Passion that would make him die for the man in front of him. But sacrifice is not what frightens Anakin, Obi-Wan knows…it is the Other. The writhing, needing part that is so frightening. For Anakin has recognized it in himself.

Obi-Wan clenches his fists, suddenly, in a painful inward rage, one tempered only by the fact that he does not wish to alarm or terrify his dearest friend any further. "Anakin…I'm so sorry! I have _tried_…" he cannot seem to form any more words.

"What…? Obi-Wan?" Outwardly, Anakin is stunned, shocked beyond belief. But inside of him _something_ is singing loudly with its own red heat, demanding to be allowed to be known.

"I tried to keep it from you, Anakin. I know…I know it isn't _right_." Obi-Wan seems so defeated suddenly, so unlike his Master that he is painful to look at. He is but a man…a man in pain, a pain Anakin realizes suddenly that he shares.

A long silence passes between them, but it is not a **still **silence. They each battle with their own passions, each half-willing to hide them in the darkness again, and each half-wishing they could be laid painfully bare. Obi-Wan weeps silently.

Anakin, in all his years with his Master, has seen him weep very few times, and never has he seen him wracked with such utter despair, and pain, and loneliness. The urge to comfort Obi-Wan as he has been comforted by him overwhelms Anakin. He takes very slow and shaky steps back to where Obi-Wan is seated, and stares down at the bowed form of his friend, his teacher, his…

It wells up in him like a beautiful wound. _Oh, beloved! Oh, my teacher! My counselor! My truest friend! My anchor! My Love!_

It is almost more than he can bear to feel. He kneels, and as his dearest friend had done for him, he carefully…shakily…opens his arms. Palms down in submission, trembling, he waits. Though he does not know exactly what he is waiting for—for he has never, ever _held_ Obi-Wan as he has been held by him—he does not expect the man he loves and reveres to look up at him with blue eyes full to the brim with that raging Passion, to move forward with such true and purposeful intent, to touch his face with those beloved and roughly calloused fingers, or to pull him in until they are crushed chest-to-chest and cheek-to-cheek.

Obi-Wan's _feel_, the smell of his hair and skin, his breath in Anakin's ear, his very presence is suddenly beautifully solid. Anakin gives in to his aching need to just _touch_, and buries his fingers in the thick hair at the nape of the other man's neck, pushes his leather-bound arm into the small of a bowed back and draws the warmth of the other man's body inward. He hears Obi-Wan sigh.

Something this wonderful…_cannot_ be wrong, and with that knowledge they set themselves free. They cling to each other with such strength and force, that if the Lord of the Sith were present, his every attempt to separate flesh from flesh would be foiled.

"Obi-Wan…" the sound of his name, spoken so softly by cherished lips, undoes him.

He moves his mouth to the soft shell of Anakin's ear. "Anakin…don't be afraid."

"I'm not," is the emboldened reply. "I'm not afraid. I know you wouldn't hurt me. I trust you. You are my _friend_…" Here the word friend catches in his throat, because there is more meaning behind it than he is used to admitting.

"Friend…you are my _beloved_." Here Obi-Wan pulls away, but only just, and takes Anakin's pale face in his hands. "There is no one that I care for more than you." Feeling only, still, he draws Anakin to him and kisses him tenderly on his temple, brushing away dark curls as he does so. "_No one_…"

Another fear rises suddenly in Anakin's throat, and almost chokes him. "What if they…what if they find out? What if they knew?"

Obi-Wan pulls fully away to look into his eyes. "It doesn't matter, anymore." His words settle in the air, where they finally register in Anakin's emotion-riddled brain.

"It doesn't…it doesn't matter?" Half a question.

"No, love, it doesn't. If you do not think me a monster, then what anyone else thinks of me does not matter. We will keep it a secret for our sake, but if they find out and expel us…we will survive. We will more than survive. We will continue to fight, and live, and…oh, how I have wanted only to love you! That is the shadow on my heart, Anakin, that I might die and never have been able to truly love you! To hold you as I am now, without shame. And that you would wish for that, too."

"I _have_…" though his voice trembles, the conviction in his words is undeniable. "I have loved you since the day you wrapped me in a blanket, and put me on that ship, and took me away from the place where Master Qui-Gonn passed into the Force. I loved you then, only I didn't fully understand it. I'm not even sure I do now…"

"No rushing, then. Only time. Time is all we have."

Anakin covers the hand that is touching his face with his own, and squeezes as tightly as he dares, and loses himself in the loving gaze he is being offered. Without thought, without comprehension, he leans up into bliss.

Lips, breath…_bliss_. To kiss Obi-Wan is both stabilizing contentment and alarming electricity. Rough palms smooth down his jaw, and thick fingers bury themselves in the fall of his hair. The texture of Obi-Wan's beard is surprising—both smooth and coarse—and it sends a screaming shock of pleasure to the pit of Anakin's stomach. He gasps suddenly, and pulls a fraction of an inch away, but Obi-Wan steals the distance, capturing Anakin's full lower lip and pulling him into a possessive, passionate kiss.

Anakin is not even sure he knows where he is anymore. His body is trembling with…_desire_, and the barest movement of one of those hands in his hair, or of that tickling breath on his face threatens to make him combust. _Now, more, now, yes, please…_

* * *

I hate to leave all of you hanging like this, but a friend of mine just came to visit. I promise I'll have the ending for you very soon!

Peace, Princess S.


	4. Are One

"YIN AND YANG"

By: Princess Sassafras

Part IV- Are One

Notes: I'm very sorry to those of you I promised that I would have this part done by last weekend! I've been having…ahem…medical problems. I won't nauseate you with the details. Especially since it might ruin your appetite for this yummy chapter. Did I say yummy? You heard it! And there is at least one more on the way! Please review.

Princess S.

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Anakin's hands ran tracks of exquisite fire down Obi-Wan's face and neck. His lips sent a delicious shockwave through his frame. The older man was aware of every tender stretch of skin that was being touched by any part of Anakin. Not even in the most intensive muscle-wracking training had he felt so alive. Jedi had to possess great awareness of their bodies, to be sure, but never had he experienced such…shivering hypersensitive _bliss_…at what his own body could make him feel. It was a buzz, a quick thrumming throughout the whole of him.

Anakin felt much the opposite; he did not feel as if he had a body at all…he felt as if he had been launched from it like a sizzling star. His every nerve was on fire, but he was less aware of that than of the sensation of flight. Joy, rapture, release, but an all-consuming need to _explode_ across what he felt was the naked expanse in him, that black beautiful nothingness that waited only for his own bright _bang_!

As Anakin touched, kissed, moved more and more quickly, his blood ever-faster pounding, Obi-Wan melted almost beneath him, under the drive of that intensive heat.

"_Anakin…_" a whispered plea, a tender allowance.

"Obi-Wan…I'm not sure I know what…" He breathed into the corner of the other man's mouth, another burning kiss threatening even as the last one lingered. And, in truth, Anakin did not know. He knew what he wanted…to never come down, to continue whirling farther up and up towards the apex of this new brilliant emotion, to leap ever higher from sensation to sensation until…what? _I'm not sure I know what…will happen then!_

"Should we stop…Anakin?" A tendril of apprehension stretched out amidst rapture, and pleasure, and whirlwind fire.

_Should we? _Blue eyes shone like the lowest, hottest part of candle flame_. I don't want to._

_Neither do I, but this can't be safe._

_Neither are we. We are not safe. Our lives are not safe! Why should this be any different?_

_Why should it be any different?_ _It isn't; it's all the same; this is meant to be; it is the very will of the Force._ The Force, like a mighty river, the greatest current of which seemed to propel them onward, not allowing them to rest on the bank or pull back upon the rock, but jettisoning them forward in a great whorl-dance. It made Anakin want to laugh with pleasure!

Obi-Wan quivered against him, still uncertain. So long he had shuttered it away or clung to the shore just long enough to still his quaking heart. It ached to sever his ties to anything solid, to surrender him to the ebb and flow, to release him to be tossed about like any other wavelet or line of frothing rock-stirred foam.

Freedom.

_Freedom._

_The Force is freedom…despite governments and laws, despite the Jedi Order…it disproves all vows…all but one._ Obi-Wan remembered the vow he made long ago, the one that was deeper even than the promise he made to serve the Order, the one made only to the everlasting Force. And if the Force, as it proved itself to be, meant Freedom, then Obi-Wan would break all else to take the path it had laid out before him. Even unto Expulsion, even unto Exile…and he knew he could survive all of that, and more, if the man in whose loving arms he was bolstered…would follow him there.

Anakin felt Obi-Wan's life energy rush towards him like a great tide as he let go of his fear. All of the held back apprehension, love, hope, wonder and joy washed over him in a shuddering wave.

They embraced it as they embraced each other, rocking with the force of it, releasing themselves into it, and nearly drowning in it. Even kisses slowed as they clung to each other, merely _breathing_ each other, lost in the _feeling_ of it. Anakin still kissed Obi-Wan's neck as they rocked, over and over, whispering in between, "This is everything, everything, _everything_…"

A cutting sliver of sunlight across their faces did not pull them completely from their place in the void, but it did cause their eyes to fall open, and they suddenly remembered where they were, and _when_ in Time it was. Time is an ugly man-invented thing.

Obi-Wan's hand gentled Anakin's dark curls. The younger man's strong human hand was still clenching and unclenching in the fabric of Obi-Wan's pale tunic, his leather-bound hand of steel still balancing the weight of their entire bodies, as if they were the round bell at the bottom of a pendulum, and that Hand was the stem from which they hung.

Their breathing changed its pace, returning to something more normal. Anakin did not remove his face from the crook of Obi-Wan's neck, did not detach his lips from the skin there. If any one had been behind Obi-Wan's back at that moment, any enemy or friend, they would have seen two smoldering eyes peering at them over the pale shoulder of the older man, eyes glinting beautifully and dangerously bright in the dazzling rays of the Naboo sun. Almost possessive. Almost.

"Anakin…we have to go."

A sigh against his neck and the tightening of the powerful muscles in Anakin's arm and torso alerted Obi-Wan to his reluctance, no, _resistance_.

"Oh, Anakin…I would give nothing more than to stay here with you…forever, but—"

"Then _stay_." There was even the barest hint of a whine in the young man's otherwise completely mature voice.

"We cannot! No matter what we have decided, it must not interfere with our immediate lives…until we have a plan."

"But you remember, don't you, that plans never go according to plan."

"Anakin, please don't joke."

"I'm not, I'm _very_ serious."

"I see." Obi-Wan smiled and, relenting for a moment, buried his face once more in thick curls that smelled of leather and linen and residual battle smoke, and something deeper and softer and more human.

A sigh in his ear, "_Obi-Wan_."

The way Anakin all but whispered his name made his spine turn to rubber, made the hairs all over his body stand alert, and made his breath bury itself in his stomach. It made his every nerve throb with tingling energy, made it rush out from the core of him to the tips of his fingers and toes. He sighed. "Must you…_must_ we?"

"Yes."

Suddenly his head was being tilted back gently but forcefully. Suddenly warm, full lips were pressed against his, and strong hands were running furrows through his hair. The kiss was long, and sweet, and delicious. When Anakin finally pulled away to stare into intensely dilated gray-blue eyes, Obi-Wan smiled reluctantly, licking his own lips. "I did say…you would be the death of me."

Anakin's answering smile bordered on wolfish.

"But Anakin, we must, we truly _must_, make some sort of appearance today. Together or separate. Soon."

"I know. I only wish we didn't have to."

"It changes nothing. We will see each other at the end of the day's duties. And we must concentrate on what we are doing! We cannot let these new emotions cloud our perceptions of reality…of what is going on around us. If we do, we will never be able to make this work. We will be lost, my love, in the space between two worlds. One which is Order created, and the other…here."

Anakin said nothing, only looked deeply into Obi-Wan's eyes, and smiling a little sadly, nodded his head. "I concede."

"Well," said Obi-Wan teasingly, "At least I still win at some things."

They took their time getting up, still very close to one another. When they were standing by the doorway, Anakin took his former Master's face in his hand, and his eyes turned serious. "We will meet at dusk, here?"

Gray-blue eyes crinkled at the edges, telling for a moment of their age. "We will meet then, here."

A kiss, and they were parted. But only physically…for their minds held the link they had created with astonishing resolve, and they were never alone.

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End file.
